


The Troublesome Heat of the Indian Subcontinent,  the Insufferable Gabriel Lorca, and His Rather Fine Eyes: A Katrina Cornwell Story

by lodessa



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Banter, Caught Out In The Rain, Courtship, F/M, First Impressions, Matchmaking, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 18:22:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17249156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: When Miss Katrina Cornwell agrees to accompany her good friend, Philippa Georgiou, to visit their mutual friend, Afsaneh Paris, in Calcutta, she in no way anticipates the type of heat she is about to encounter.





	The Troublesome Heat of the Indian Subcontinent,  the Insufferable Gabriel Lorca, and His Rather Fine Eyes: A Katrina Cornwell Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AdmiralKatCornwellfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdmiralKatCornwellfan/gifts).



> Thank you to the wonderful [devovere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovere/pseuds/devovere) for the multiple rounds of beta assistance.

“Now then, what was all that about?” Philippa asks the moment the door shuts behind the maid whom Afsaneh sent to show them up to their room, leaving them alone for the first time since their arrival at the Parises’ Calcutta estate.

“Whatever do you mean?” Katrina evades as she removes her hat pin, knowing perfectly well what her friend is asking about.

Placing her hat on the dresser, she reaches for her handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from her brow. She recognizes the heat is making her irritable, but there’s more to it than that.

Lorca. Gabriel Lorca. He’s just as insufferably arrogant and infuriating in person as his writing has been all this time, and yet she can’t even reveal to him that she knows who he is and all about his ill-conceived bullheaded arguments in favor of bimetallism. Not without as good as burning the pseudonym for which she’s built a reputation over the last five years.

“That associate of Afsenah’s father, Mr. Lorca. How is it that you know him, and why did you pretend not to?”

“Who says I know him?”

“Do not lie to me, Katrina. I know you better than that. The way you immediately picked an argument with him was not like you, and the fervor with which you looked at one another makes it clear there is a history there. What is it? Is he a former suitor of yours?”

“Nothing like that,” she hastily insists, sensing the very real threat of one of Philippa’s schemes. “In point of fact, he and I had not met before today. He certainly didn’t know me.”

“Whatever do you mean? Do stop talking in riddles.”

Sighing and pulling at the collar of her dress in some hopeless attempt to diminish the sweltering heat that’s been pressing in around them ever since they disembarked from the ship earlier in the day, Katrina sits down at the edge of the bed.

“Do you recall that I started writing under a false name while we were still in school?”

“Of course. You were vexed that no one would take your opinions seriously as a woman, so you started addressing papers as a man. Kenneth C. Wells, wasn’t it?”

“Well, I’ve kept up with it since then, and the thing is that Lorca and Wells have had a rather… heated debate history.”

“Is he that same ‘impossible deluded narcissist’ you would stay up all night writing rebuttals to? The way you described him, I imagined someone rather less-”

“Less what?”

“Charming. Good looking. Youthful but worldly. Do not pretend you didn’t notice any of those things.”

“I don’t care how much his eyes look like the sea,” she insists. “I know what’s behind them, and it is prideful ignorance.”

She knows what Philippa is saying, though. It is not as though she were blind. His style of argument might be the same in person, but words cannot adequately describe the light in those impossibly blue eyes of his nor the warmth in the rough sound of his voice.

“That is not what I observed,” Philippa says quietly with that knowing smile that Katrina is far too familiar with.

“Well then, great and all knowing Madame Georgiou, what did you see?”

“Passion. Focus. The irrefutable fact that he doesn’t know you are Wells but couldn’t keep his eyes off you during the entire ride.”

“He was just shocked that I disputed his words,” she counters, “Men who are used to being swooned at often are briefly intrigued by the novelty of a woman who challenges them. He will get over it and decide that I am out of my mind or a bitter spinster or whatever story he can tell himself to dismiss me.”

“Now who is playing the fortune teller, Katrina?” Philippa shakes her head. “But come now, we’d better dress for dinner.”

“That’s right,” Katrina eagerly accepts the change of subject, “Afsaneh mentioned that Amanda… not Grayson anymore I suppose, Amanda who was with us at the academy and her new husband would be joining us. You’ve met the Ambassador haven’t you, Philippa?”

“Indeed,” Philippa replies. “It was I who introduced them.”

“They say that he’s a cold man, very reserved. I wonder at the match; she was always so sweet and openly warm.”

“Sarek is a complicated man.” Philippa stiffens a little at Katrina’s words and she thinks perhaps there is a story to be had there. “He may not be expressive in the way your Lorca is, but he’s a good man, perhaps one of the best I know. He has a sharp mind; I think you should find him worthy of esteem if you give him a chance.”

“He’s not **my** Lorca-” Katrina can’t help insisting, before realizing she’s only adding fuel to Philippa’s belief.

“Do my words bother so you much, Katrina? It’s not like you to react so violently to a little good-natured jest.”

“I’m sorry, really. If you have such respect for Ambassador Sarek then I am sure it is warranted. I think the heat is just getting to me.”

Philippa seems unaffected by the humid heat of Calcutta, but then her Malay girlhood must have acclimatized her to such conditions. Katrina remembers her shivering through the winters while they were at school.

“The first thing we need to do is get your hair up off your neck,” Philippa offers, immediately moving behind her to make that change. “I know you are terribly fond of the severe schoolmistress effect of coiling it all at the nape of your neck, but it is doubtless adding to your discomfort.”

“Are you sure that isn’t just a pretense justifying your attempts to make my appearance more appealing to men’s eyes and thus further the matchmaking scheme I know you have been planning since you laid eyes on one Gabriel Lorca earlier?”

“No, my dear Katrina, I have been considering such a plot since **you** laid eyes on him. The change in hairstyle will help you feel less besieged by the heat, though, and perhaps Afsaneh has something more suited to the climate that you can wear.”

Philippa is stubborn, but so is Katrina, so she swears to herself that she won’t let her friend’s penchant for matchmaking influence her own good sense. Gabriel Lorca is insufferable and wrong and she doesn’t care what he thinks of her.

___________________________________________________________________

Katrina barely makes it through dessert before excusing herself for some fresh air out in the courtyard.

_I thought I’d put all the Americans together,_ Governor Paris had laughed, as they entered the dining room. Afsaneh’s adoptive father strikes Katrina as a kind sort of man,so she supposes he must have assumed that they’d have something in common because of their country of origin. Whatever his reasons, it meant that she had ended up seated at one end of the table beside Lorca, across from Ambassador Sarek who was seated beside his wife.

“My wife tells me that you were known for your keen mathematical mind at the academy, Miss Cornwell,” the ambassador had offered flatly. Katrina had found it difficult to ascertain whether his intent was patronizing, satirical, or earnest.

“We used to have these study sessions in our tiny dormitory rooms. Eight or ten of us all crammed in there,” Amanda had smiled as she recalled. She was much as Katrina remembered her, elegant and welcoming.

“How difficult could the curriculum at a ladies school really be?” Lorca had of course chimed in.

“My cousin seemed to find my knowledge adequate to the task to tutoring him while he was at Harvard,” Katrina had found she couldn’t help shooting back, though that kind of self-congratulatory bragging was hardly something she would usually indulge in.

It had gotten progressively more trying from that point on. Ambassador Sarek had seemed to be genuinely interested in the contents of her studies, but Lorca spoiled any enjoyment she might have had in that with his constant interjections.

So, by the time she makes her escape outside, she is really desperate for the peace of having only the lush foliage, colorful birds, and occasional monkey for company.

Unfortunately that is not to be, as the very source of her aggravation seems intent on following her out into her intended refuge.

“Miss Cornwell,” the already familiar voice calls out from behind her, and Katrina groans internally as she whirls around to face him. “You seem to have forgotten your fan.”

She wonders what his objective is, whether Gabriel Lorca merely enjoys causing suffering wherever he goes or if it is somehow personal for him as it is for her.

She turns around and there he is with the aforementioned fan held out, looking every bit a perfect solicitous gentleman, and yet Katrina knows he is nothing of the sort.

“So I have,” she says for want of anything more appropriate, accepting the proffered fan and opening it as a barrier between them. “I suppose the heat is making me a bit dull.”

Despite it being after nightfall, the day’s heat still lingers oppressively around them, and Katrina feels uncomfortably warm despite the risque neckline of the dress Afsaneh has lent her. The movement of air from her fan hardly seems to make any difference. In fact it feels as though she might be even more flushed than she was before he followed her out to give it to her.

“If this is you dull, I tremble to imagine you sharp minded.” Lorca smiles in a way that seems conspiratorial, as if they are old friends instead of strangers who can barely maintain civility with one another.

“Do you always resort to mocking your opponents as slow of mind, or only the women you encounter, Mr. Lorca?”

“I didn’t mean to mock you at all, Miss Cornwell,” he seems slightly taken aback. “In truth I find you a fascinating puzzle.”

Philippa’s insistence that he might be besotted with her springs to mind for a moment before Katrina pulls herself back from it and from getting lost in the sparkle of his eyes.

“And what, pray tell, is so puzzling about me?” She barely resists the urge to roll her eyes, instead pacing away from him a bit.

“You are clearly intelligent, and yet you seem to spurn intellectual debate. Your way of comporting yourself implies that you do not wish to draw attention to yourself, and yet you want everyone to know that you know better than them.”

“Perhaps I just have no patience for spurious arguments,” she replies, just barely resisting the rising urge to respond at much greater length, as she turns back around to find he has once again closed the gap between them.

“And what do you have patience for?” he enquires placing his hand on her free one, and Katrina shivers despite the heat.

“Not a lot,” she admits, “Looking after the finances of my father’s business keeps me rather busy and between that and charity work and politics, I rarely have leisure to indulge myself in. Afsaneh and Philippa are dear friends, so I have taken this time to reconnect with them, but I fear I am unaccustomed to idleness, Mr. Lorca, and ill suited to filling time frivolously.”

“And you think that’s all I do?” he asks, thumb caressing over the palm of her hand through the thinness of her glove.

“I think you value novelty overmuch, Mr. Lorca, past the point of prudence.”

“And why is that, Miss Cornwell? What is it that has so convinced you that I am so reckless and easily persuaded?”

She can’t very well tell him the truth: that she’s analyzed his published opinions intently for years, that she is the person he’s been debating via correspondence all this time while thinking she was, like him, a man.

“My observation of you thus far in our acquaintance has persuaded me as to your character: the way you have apparently decided I am to be the object of some sort of intellectual sport and that you reflexively seem to take up the opposing argument whenever anyone states an opinion, no matter how reasonable.”

“And my observation of you tells me you are overly attached to convention and following the way things have always been done. You are keen of mind but unwilling to apply that in any sort of creative manner. I think you are so afraid to try something new that you are apt to let life pass you by without ever giving the greatest opportunity presented to you a try.”

“Oh and I suppose you think you know what that opportunity is,” she scoffs, turning her face away from him.

Truly, he is the most invasive and presumptuous person she has ever met. Just because she is sensible does not make her timid or fearful. What an insufferable man!

“Well I damned well know that if I don’t give anything beyond the current extent of my experience a try I am not going to find it,” he curses, pulling his hand back from hers and stalking over to the nearest tree.

“Just because something is new doesn’t make it better,” she retorts, fanning herself more rapidly in some attempt to divert the energy of her feelings into the movement. “No feast, however grand, is worth going hungry the rest of the year.”

“Wait a minute…” Lorca turns back towards her, eyes wide, jaw gone slack, “I’ll be darned if-”

She doesn’t wait around to hear the rest of whatever he has to say. The nerve of the man. He’s only just met her, yet somehow thinks himself qualified to comment on her life and her choices.

___________________________________________________________________

“He came from nothing you know,” Afsaneh tells her apropos of nothing in particular.

Philippa has gone ahead to Ambassador Sarek’s estate with the Ambassador and Amanda, though the rest of them are to join the party tomorrow. Lorca has gone into town on an errand for Afsaneh’s father, so the two of them have enjoyed a few hours of peace, lounging in the library and indulging in trays of sticky fresh fruit the servants keep replenishing.

“Who did?” Katrina asks, as though she cannot guess the subject of Afsaneh’s commentary or the reason for it.

“Lorca,” Afsaneh confirms, “My father says he’s possessed of a genius for business. Other women might hold being a self-made man against him, but that’s not you, Katrina.”

“You are right; I have no quarrel with his having built his own fortune,” Katrina agrees, refusing to react strongly as she can tell Afsaneh is expecting her to. “But I find that when men are described as geniuses it often merely means that they are arrogant and self-important beyond all measure.”

“If you really believed that about Gabriel Lorca, you would not pay any mind to him,” Afsaneh points out.

“Who says I do? It is you and Philippa who are so very preoccupied with discussing him.”

Truly, it must be their interference that keeps the man in her thoughts so constantly, as they insist on incessant conversations about him.

“Every moment you are in his company it is clear that you can focus on little else. I would ask why you are so reluctant to admit your regard, but I believe I already know the answer.”

“That is a presumption almost on a scale to match that of the gentleman in question. What is it you think you know, Afsaneh?”

Setting down her own book, Afsaneh rises to move to the couch Katrina is currently occupying, placing her hand on Katrina’s arm.

“You have always liked to be in control, Katrina. I say that without malice or cruelty as I suffer from the same compulsion. Mathematics suited you, because there is always a clear order: one objective and findable answer to each question. Perhaps that is why you and I have always understood one another and found such easy companionship with one another.”

“I admit that freely. I do prefer logic and order to impulsiveness and indulgence in passing fancies. That doesn’t support this crusade you and Philippa are on to convince me that I’m bewitched by Mr. Gabriel Lorca, though. Our shared preference for reason and restraint makes us so well matched as friends, Afsaneh, so would such similarities not also be the foundation for romantic harmony as well?”

“Perhaps it might be a recipe for domestic convenience such as women less fortunate than ourselves might settle for. Many a schoolmate of ours has made a prudent choice in a similarly compatible husband, but neither of us need look for the security of a husband at all, not for the sake of pragmatism. If we are to be induced to courtship, it must be on other grounds.”

Katrina recognizes the truth that there is no exterior need for either of them to marry, and that she finds sensible men rather dull and unremarkable, not worthy of censure but still lacking anything to draw her interest.

“You are right about neither of us needing a husband, but I don’t see how this supports your assertion that I should indulge in some flight of fancy over a man I can barely be civil with.”

Yes, there might be a certain intensity to her reaction to him, but passion and regard are two very different creatures, and the former is nothing praiseworthy on its own.

“Lorca makes you uncomfortable because he invokes an emotional response from you. If you didn’t have feelings for him you would have no trouble with civility such as you describe.”

“How do you know I don’t just despise him on principle? After all, he and I have been intellectual rivals for years.”

Years of aggravation that someone so intellectually deft should fixate so impossibly on such a foolish premise. The promise and the flaws of his arguments had tormented her long before she ever beheld his person, fine as it might be.

“I’ve seen you despise people before, Katrina. Consider the study I know you have done on the subject of psychology and I think you will find that your antagonistic response to Mr. Lorca truly comes from a place of fear, which I know is a motivation you have often disparaged.”

“Why should I fear Mr. Lorca-”

“You fear your feelings for him, Katrina. You have always prided yourself on being sensible rather than sentimental, but is it really sensible to lie to oneself in such a manner?”

She cannot honestly claim that he does not evoke an emotional response from her, even if she is unwilling to accept Afsaneh’s conclusions regarding its import.

Sighing, she sets down her book at last and faces Afsaneh, “Very well then. It is true that Gabriel Lorca does bring to the surface some strong feelings I am not accustomed to. However, I refuse to ascribe any value or meaning to that phenomenon and it in no way changes that I believe him to be willfully ignorant and arrogant.”

“Oh, I have no doubt that you believe that about him,” Afsaneh smiles, “But you are half in love with him nonetheless.”

Afsaneh looks so smug that Katrina has no choice but to hurl her book at her.  
___________________________________________________________________

Curse her stubbornness. Everyone had said it was going to rain, but Katrina had refused to believe them, eager as she was to go off walking on her own. Now here she is in a real monsoon, soaked to the skin, skirts covered in mud, cold for the first time since arriving in India, and hopelessly turned around.

“Oh, thank God I’ve found you!”

Turning around, she finds Gabriel Lorca, halfway drenched himself despite the large umbrella he is carrying, eyes more vibrant than ever as their stormy blue eclipses the grey violence of the sky.

“Mr. Lorca! What are you doing out here?” she says, though it is quite obvious he’s gone out into the storm looking for her.

If she were a more fanciful woman she would think it romantic, might get caught up in how much he resembles an engraving from one of those romance novels her classmates used to pass around at school. _Heroic_ , some other woman might think. _Romantic_.

_Showy_ , she thinks instead, _Foolhardy and impractical._

“I felt responsible,” he answers, holding the umbrella out to her and leaving himself in the downpour. “I know that you find me vexing at times and that’s why you were so eager to go off on your own.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she tells him. Their hands brush as he hands her the umbrella, water falling even more heavily from the sky than before. “Surely we can manage to both fit under the shelter of this umbrella.”

He steps closer; even though she’s invited him to do so, Katrina feels her chest tighten at his sudden proximity, at the awareness of the heat radiating from his skin.

“I see you don’t deny that I vex you,” he repeats huskily, one hand coming to rest at the small of her back as their shoulders almost touch.

“I don’t believe in lying, Mr. Lorca,” she replies, though she wonders just how much he understands about the way his presence winds her up and all the dimensions to that reaction.

“I’ve always been attracted to that about you, Miss. Cornwell… or should I say Mr. Wells.”

She nearly drops the umbrella.

“You… you knew?”

“Not at first,” he clarifies, “It never occured to me to doubt Wells’ identity. When we met I felt the same intense interest in your arguments, but it wasn’t until our conversation out in the Parises’ garden, when you used that same feast and famine metaphor Wells is so fond of, that I put the two together.”

“That’s why you looked so surprised,” she realizes, “Why didn’t you say something then?”

“I was about to,” he tells her, “But you left. And then I was worried that you would hate me for uncovering that little secret.”

“If that is so, what changed to have you running out into the rain to reveal it now?”

“Because there is something I’ve wanted to tell you, and I hated the idea of you out here alone in this downpour. I suppose I’ve never been very good at waiting for the right moment.”

“Whatever is it that is so urgent suddenly?” she can’t help asking, as he stares at her intently, making her all too aware of how her wet clothes must be clinging to her.

He probably just wanted to prove how clever he was for figuring out she was Wells, but some part of her can’t help whirring at the idea that it might be something else, that Philippa and Afsaneh might have been right about more than the attraction to him she’s been fighting.

“You see, the thing is that I haven’t really cared about the bimetallist cause in years. I just loved debating with Wells and didn’t want to give that up. It was the most exciting part of each month.”

Just like that her foundation for understanding Lorca collapses. Can he really mean what he is saying?

“You kept arguing a point you didn’t even believe in anymore… just so I’d continue arguing back at you?” she scoffs, unable to accept something so absurd.

“I didn’t want to lose that connection,” he insists.

“Even if I despised you for it?”

He reaches across to cover her hand where it is gripping the umbrella handle, his other hand still against her back. A lock of his wet hair has fallen forward onto his forehead and Katrina feels an urge to push it back as she finds herself watching a rivulet of water streaming from it down his face.

“Even then. At least it wasn’t apathy. At least you weren’t forgetting me.”

“And now?” she asks, aware that he must have a reason for telling her all this about his feelings about Wells and his discovery that she had been Wells all along.

“I had rather hoped I could persuade Miss Katrina Cornwell to debate with me in person, though of course if not, I suppose I could go back to that stalemate with Wells,” he chuckles, eyes drifting down and then back up as though appraising her.

“So that’s what you want from me, a debate partner?”

That makes more sense than anything else in this conversation they have been having.

“It would be a start,” he says with a tone of suggestion that insists on being interrogated.

“And what is the eventual conclusion you’re imagining, if that’s the start?” she plays along, too curious not to.

It occurs to Katrina that they have stopped walking, but she supposes that it wouldn’t do to arrive back to the house still having this discussion.

“I don’t think there’s any way to know without heading down that path, but there are certain attributes that Miss Katrina Cornwell has and Wells was lacking. At the end of this, I imagine that we might even find ourselves to be partners in life, not just in debate.”

It’s not exactly a romantic declaration, but there’s something about it that has that effect on Katrina anyway.

“And just what might those attributes be, Mr. Gabriel Lorca?”

“Rather a fine form and an eminently kissable face, to start,” he offers, taking the umbrella from her with one hand and moving the other around her waist as he turns her to face him more directly.

“Who says it is kissable?” she retorts.

“Well, there’s only one way to be certain,” he smiles, reaching out and caressing her cheek with his calloused hand.

He leans in slowly. Katrina knows that she could step out of the way or push him back, but she doesn’t, as if under a spell, instead letting him tilt her chin up so that his lips meet hers neatly.

Katrina reminds herself that she has been kissed before. For a while she’d been stepping out with a solid nice chap who was friends who her cousin George, but his awkward attempts had been nothing like this. Despite herself, Katrina really does feel like one of those flighty romance novel heroines, possessed by the tide of longing and emotion that wells up as his mouth brushes hers and then presses more firmly against it.

After more than a moment, she manages to collect herself. Gently pushing her hands against his chest, she pulls away from the embrace, flushed and trembling.

“And just what do you imagine happens now that you’ve proved that my face is kissable, Mr. Lorca?”

“For one thing, I think you should call me Gabriel when we are alone,” he says.

“Gabriel,” she repeats, heart racing.

She feels giddy and elated but also plagued with uncertainty as to his intentions. Gabriel Lorca is just a little too charming, overly at ease in a manner that suggests practice She doesn’t know him, not really, and she’s not naive enough to believe that her heart can be trusted to ferret out truth as opposed to fantasy.

“Katrina. No that doesn’t feel right… Kat. Can I call you that?”

“You just did,” she points out, not agreeing but not contesting the presumption either.

“Well then. Kat, I am pretty sure I’ve never felt this way about anyone else.”

Still not quite a declaration in the manner of those novels, but she decides she’s glad of that. This halfway statement with its vague import she can perhaps believe, in ways she could not give credence to some dramatic claim of devotion.

“That could just be the tropical climate talking. For all either of us knows we’ve both caught a fever and are delirious.”

She has no intention of sacrificing her heart or respectability to some clandestine torrid love affair. If these feelings she has about Gabriel mean anything of significance, they will weather the transition back to reality. If not, then they are not worth entertaining any further.

“I’ll tell you what,” he grins, lifting her hand in his and kissing it, “My business in India is almost concluded, and we will both be back in America soon. We will take your scientific approach. I’ll come find you there, and we’ll see if either of us feels differently when we are breathing the cold New England air instead of the exotic fumes of the subcontinent.”

“I’ll be with my father in Chicago,” Katrina tells him.

“Well then, I’ll rearrange my plans to bring me to Chicago,” he says, somewhat to her surprise. Though, she reminds herself, there is nothing to say he will make good on that promise.

He holds out his arm to her and she takes it, as they resume their walk back. It might be her imagination, but it seems to her that the rain has lessened somewhat.

“When and if you make it to Chicago, I will look forward to pointing out the flaws in your attempts at persuasion once more.”

“Oh good,” he chuckles, bending his head towards her and adding in a low whisper that sends a shiver down her spine, “I simply can’t wait to hear everything that’s wrong about the way I’m going to court you.”


End file.
